PERSPECTIVE Early fossil record of Euarthropoda and the Cambrian Explosion PERSPECTIVE Allison C. Daleya,b,c,1, Jonathan B. Antcliffea,b,c, Harriet B. Dragea,b,c, and Stephen Patesa,b Edited by Neil H. Shubin, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, and approved April 6, 2018 (received for review December 20, 2017) Euarthropoda is one of the best-preserved fossil animal groups and has been the most diverse animal phylum for over 500 million years. Fossil Konservat-Lagerstätten, such as Burgess Shale-type deposits (BSTs), show the evolution of the euarthropod stem lineage during the Cambrian from 518 million years ago (Ma). The stem lineage includes nonbiomineralized groups, such as Radiodonta (e.g., Anomalocaris) that provide insight into the step-by-step construction of euarthropod morphology, including the exo- skeleton, biramous limbs, segmentation, and cephalic structures. Trilobites are crown group euarthropods that appear in the fossil record at 521 Ma, before the stem lineage fossils, implying a ghost lineage that needs to be constrained. These constraints come from the trace fossil record, which show the first evi- dence for total group Euarthropoda (e.g., Cruziana, Rusophycus) at around 537 Ma. A deep Precambrian root to the euarthropod evolutionary lineage is disproven by a comparison of Ediacaran and Cambrian lagerstätten. BSTs from the latest Ediacaran Period (e.g., Miaohe biota, 550 Ma) are abundantly fossilif- erous with algae but completely lack animals, which are also missing from other Ediacaran windows, such as phosphate deposits (e.g., Doushantuo, 560 Ma). This constrains the appearance of the euarthropod stem lineage to no older than 550 Ma. While each of the major types of fossil evidence (BSTs, trace fossils, and biomineralized preservation) have their limitations and are incomplete in different ways, when taken together they allow a coherent picture to emerge of the origin and subsequent radiation of total group Euarthropoda during the Cambrian. paleontology | Paleozoic | evolution | Arthropoda | Cambrian explosion Euarthropoda (in the sense of ref. 1), consisting of the of all major animal phyla in the 30 or so million years extant groups Chelicerata and Mandibulata, is the following the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary (2, 7–10). most abundant and diverse animal phylum, and is However, Precambrian ancestors to the Metazoa have one of the best-studied in modern biology. For over long been sought (11–13), with exploration efforts 500 million years, euarthropods have been major com- yielding numerous and diverse paleontological dis- ponents of animal ecosystems, as indicated by their rich coveries in this interval of time (8, 14). fossil record (2, 3). The earliest fossil assemblages of We here examine the early fossil record of euar- euarthropods show a range of preservation types, and thropods (Fig. 1), and use it as a model to explore the they provide the most complete metazoan example of quality of the fossil data as it relates to the Cambrian phylum-level anatomical construction in the early evo- explosion. Numerous types of fossil preservation, in- lutionary lineage (2, 4). Euarthropod fossils have been cluding soft-bodied macrofossils from Burgess Shale- key for examining the dynamics of the rapid early ra- type (BST) localities, biomineralized exoskeletons, mi- diation of animals during the Cambrian explosion (2, crofossils (phosphatic, siliceous, and carbonaceous), 4–7). This event is documented by the Cambrian fossil and trace fossils are compared and contrasted across record, which depicts a coherent sequence of events, the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary to constrain when including the origins of bioturbation, biomineralization, euarthropods first evolved. In congruence with the animal reef systems, zooplankton, and the appearance most recent analyses from molecular paleobiology aInstitute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, G ´eopolis,CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; bDepartment of Zoology, University of Oxford, OX1 3PS Oxford, United Kingdom; and cOxford University Museum of Natural History, OX1 3PW Oxford, United Kingdom Author contributions: A.C.D. and J.B.A. designed research; A.C.D. and J.B.A. performed research; A.C.D., J.B.A., H.B.D., and S.P. analyzed data; and A.C.D., J.B.A., H.B.D., and S.P. wrote the paper. The authors declare no conflict of interest. This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. Published under the PNAS license. 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected]. This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1719962115/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1719962115 PNAS Latest Articles | 1of9 Downloaded by guest on September 24, 2021 20). Next are the “gilled lobopodians” from Sirius Passet, Ker- ygmachela, and Pambdelurion (21), which possess lateral flaps and unsclerotized frontal appendages in addition to lobopod walking limbs. Pambdelurion also has sclerotized plates sur- rounding the ventral-facing mouth (21). The Burgess Shale taxon Opabinia (Fig. 2B) has a similar body morphology to the gilled lobopodians (22, 23), but a more developed head with compound eyes, a posterior-facing mouth, and a grasping appendage (24). Radiodonta is a large clade (Fig. 2 C–E) that includes Anom- alocaris and occupies the uppermost lower stem lineage position (4). Radiodonts lack lobopods and have a body with lateral flaps and setal blades, and a head with a pair of sclerotized append- ages, circular mouthparts, and paired stalked compound eyes (4, 25–27). With over 20 taxa described, it is possible to examine ecological and evolutionary trends within this diverse and globally distributed clade. For example, radiodont frontal appendages (Fig. 2D) and mouthparts (Fig. 2C) were specialized either for active predation, scavenging, or filter feeding, so ecological dy- namics can be examined (26, 27). Radiodonta also provide insight into euarthropod anatomical innovation. The evolutionary im- portance of the radiodont frontal appendage is seen in its ho- mology to the labrum of modern euarthropods (6, 28). Important information is also revealed about the origin of the euarthropod biramous limb, a unique two-branched limb found in crustaceans Fig. 1. Timescale of the Cambrian fossil evidence of euarthropods. Age of important localities shown in columns for trace fossils, BSTs, and trilobites that is hypothesized to have formed from the fusion body fossils, and phosphatic microfossils. Localities in green show of two separate appendages (4, 22). The two pairs of swim flaps in evidence of euarthropods, localities in blue do not. Orange stars radiodonts (27) indicate that the endopod (walking branch) and indicate the FAD of total group Euarthropoda (FAD Trace) and crown exopod (gill branch) of the biramous limb are homologous to a group euarthropods (FAD Crown). Time in millions of years (red ventral set of walking limbs (in lobopodians, “gilled lobopodians,” writing). Data from refs. 128 and 129. Opabinia) or ventral flaps (in radiodonts) and a dorsal set of flaps with setal structures, respectively. The paired flaps of radiodonts (15–17), our comprehensive fossil dataset suggests an entirely were used for swimming, as indicated by the prominent euarthropod- Cambrian evolution for this phylum, as described below. like musculature found at the bases of the flaps in Anomalocaris (white arrows in Fig. 2E) (29). Other euarthropod features of Cambrian BST Localities Reveal the Euarthropod Stem radiodonts include paired compound eyes of Anomalocaris from Lineage the Emu Bay Shale, each with 16,000 hexagonally packed om- The most renowned fossils of the Cambrian explosion are the matidial lenses (30), and complex cephalic carapaces, which re- diverse animal assemblages found at BST localities (Fig. 2), where veal the segmental architecture of the euarthropod head region soft-bodied fossils are preserved as compressions and carbona- (4, 31). Radiodont anatomy also informs on the evolution of the ceous films in fine-grained mudstones (18, 19). Euarthropods euarthropod digestive system, with prominent gut glands (black dominate Cambrian BSTs, and many possess morphologies that arrows in Fig. 2E) indicating complexity in their feeding behavior differ greatly from extant taxa. The stem and crown group (20). Radiodonts exemplify the importance of studying fossil stem concept (2) integrates Cambrian taxa into modern animal phy- lineage taxa to understand the anatomical innovation that led to logeny, with the monophyletic crown group consisting of all the evolutionary success of the euarthropods. extant members and their extant and extinct descendants of Crownwards of Radiodonta is the Deuteropoda, a mono- the last single-common ancestor uniting them. Stem lineage phyletic clade that includes the upper stem and crown group members are extinct taxa closely related to a crown group, but Euarthropoda, and consists of a wide variety of taxa with con- outside of it because they lack defining morphological charac- tested interrelationships (1). Upper stem lineage euarthropods teristics of the crown (2). When stem taxa are arranged in a include the fuxianhuiids (32), Leanchoilia and other megacheirans paraphyletic lineage leading to a crown group, they reveal the (“great appendage” euarthropods) (33) (Fig. 2F), and bivalved order of character acquisition and indicate homologies between taxa, such as Canadaspis, Isoxys, and Perspicaris (34) (Fig. 2G), all living taxa. of which have a segmented body bearing biramous limbs